Photonic RF and Microwave Fractional Differentiation, Integration, and Hilbert Transforms With Kerr Optical Micro-Combs

Abstract

Integrated Kerr micro-combs are a powerful source of multiple wavelength channels for photonic radio frequency (RF) and microwave signal processing, particularly for transversal filter systems. They offer significant advantages featuring a compact device footprint, high versatility, large numbers of wavelengths, and wide Nyquist bands. We present our recent progress on photonic RF and microwave high bandwidth temporal signal processing based on Kerr micro-combs with comb spacings from 49GHz to 200GHz. We focus on integral and fractional Hilbert transforms, differentiators as well as integrators. The future potential of optical micro-combs for RF photonic applications in terms of functionality and ability to realize integrated solutions is also discussed.